Belén is nearly healed. His hair is growing out as white as the animagus’ who burned him.
Hector wears a crown for the first time in his life, as befits the imperial prince consort. His eyes shimmer.
My father is dead. I have no brother, no doting uncle or distant conde with whom I fostered. So Father Nicandro volunteered to walk me down the aisle. I declined. Then Belén offered, but I declined him too. This time, I said, I will give myself away.
So I step out alone. But my sister and my best friend step out behind me, and I feel their presence like a comforting blanket, a hot mug of wine, a cool breeze on a sunny day. We reach the altar, and Hector grabs my hands before Father Nicandro indicates that he should. He stares at me, unable to smile for trying so hard not to cry.
Nicandro waxes on about marriage in the Lengua Classica, but I don’t hear a word he says because I’m too busy basking. We made it, Hector and I. We lived. And though our joining merges two regions and saves a nation, this is what I would have chosen for me.
“I love you,” I mouth at him. He just swallows hard and nods.
The night is beautiful, washed with the warm glow of lanterns, the air moist and cool against my bare skin. I allow myself the luxury of listening to Hector breathe softly beside me, feeling sleepily content.
But sleep does not come.
I’ve accomplished everything I set out to do. I stopped a civil war, established peace for our generation, fulfilled a prophecy. And I lived to share the next day with the most amazing man I’ve ever known.
So why am I restless?
I rise from the bed, slowly so as not to wake my husband, grab my dressing gown from its peg, and wrap it around my shoulders. I step into the adjoining sitting room and settle at the small writing table. From the drawer I pull parchment, quill, and ink.
I consider where I ought to start, and once I have it figured out, I dip my quill and begin to write, at first furiously, then with abandon, until my hand cramps and daylight filters through the linen curtains.
My cracked Godstone winks up at me from the writing table where I carelessly tossed it days—or was it weeks?—ago. I grasp it between thumb and forefinger and hold it up to the dawning light. The center is opaque now, as black as night. It is irrevocably dead.
“What are you doing?” Hector asks.
I almost drop the stone. “I’ve been writing. Everything I can remember.”
He pads in on bare feet and leans down to kiss my forehead. “You have ink on your nose,” he says, and he kisses that too. Then he leans a hip against the table and says, “Tell me about it.”
I set down the Godstone and rub my tired eyes. “One hundred years from now . . . no, closer to eighty, I guess . . . another bearer will come along. And I don’t want her—or him—to have to figure everything out like I did. I was so unprepared, Hector. No, the world was unprepared. Everyone had a small piece of the puzzle. I had to learn bits of it from Ximena, from the priests, even Storm and the Deciregi. No one knew everything. Because we were busy being at war or arguing over doctrine or . . .”
I take a deep breath. “I won’t let that happen again. I’m an empress now. Right or wrong, my writings will be considered sacred. If I scribe it, it won’t be forgotten.”
He considers, and I know he’s turning it over in his mind, considering all possible angles. “It’s a good idea,” he says. “But you might want to keep it private, order it released upon your death. It might be a good tool for Rosario too. He’ll know that other rulers have struggled before him, that he is not alone.”
“Yes, for Rosario.” I grab my quill, dip, and add his name to a different sheet of parchment.
“And what’s that?” he asks.I blow on the ink, then hold it up. “It’s a list. There’s so much I want to get done. I want to map the catacombs, find out if that inscription in the tunnel leads to another place of power—maybe there are undiscovered gates of power all over the world. The Wallows are desperately poor, but full of good people—maybe I’ll establish a school there, or at least a library.”
“If they could read, we could hire some of them to—”
“And how exactly did our ancestors mix our blood with that of the Inviernos? Why are some Inviernos born with Godstones, when mine appeared on my naming day as if by magic? Was it God? If so, where do the machinations of our ancestors end and God’s begin . . .” My voice breaks off at the sound of chuckling.
“You will accomplish everything you set out to,” he says. “Of that I have no doubt.”
I regard him smugly. “I know.”
He indicates the Godstone with a chin lift. “What are you going to do with that?”
I stare at it. There is nothing beautiful or potent about it now. “Maybe I’ll make a necklace out of it to match my crown. If I get around to it.”
Gently, he asks, “Do you miss it?”
“No,” I say honestly. “My true power was never in my Godstone.” I grab it from the table, open the parchment drawer, and toss it inside. It glides to the back, out of sight, and I slide the drawer home.
“Speaking of power . . .” I rise from my seat and wrap my arms around his neck, kissing his cheek, his throat, running my hands over his broad shoulders. He buries his face in my hair.
“It would destroy me to have you just a little,” he once said to me. I push him back, regard him thoughtfully. At the time, he was worried I had too much power over him, that I wouldn’t be able to give him my whole self.
“Hector, I have to ask. Do you want to be an emperor? Because I could make you one. You could be my equal in rank, with just as much authority. Tristán still owes me votes on the Quorum. We could ram an edict through—”
“No need,” he says, reaching up to brush my bottom lip with his thumb. “I’m a good leader, but you’re a great ruler. I am strong enough—man enough—to be subject to you.”
“Are you?” I arch an eyebrow at him.
He scoops me up and carries me to the bed, where he lays me gently down, grinning enormously. “I am.”
“Show me,” I command.
He shows me.
About the Publisher
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Table of Contents
Disclaimer
Dear Readers
Title Page
Copyright
PART I
1
2
3
4 HECTOR
5
6 HECTOR
7
8
9
10 HECTOR
11
12 HECTOR
13
14 HECTOR
15
16
PART II
17
18
19
20 HECTOR
21
22
23
24
25
26
PART III
27
28
29
30
31
32
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nbsp; 33
34
35
36
PART IV
37
38
39
40 HECTOR
41
42
About the Publisher
Rae Carson, The Bitter Kingdom
(Series: Fire and Thorns # 3)
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